SQL Professionals Blog

Why a SQL Server Health Check is the Best First Step

By SQL Professionals | September 30, 2014

You can’t fix something until you know exactly what’s wrong. Well, you can try, but you’re going to end up wasting a lot of time and money. A doctor wouldn’t start throwing prescriptions at you without making a diagnosis—the same holds true for your business’s SQL Server databases. The first step of any responsible DBA should be a thorough SQL Server Health Check.

What is an SQL Server Health Check?

A Health Check is an in-depth, comprehensive audit of your SQL Server database: its configuration, hardware, performance, stability, backup plans, and needs. It lets your DBA know what’s causing problems, what’s working great, and how to develop a plan for improvement.

At SQL Professionals, we pride ourselves on the extremely detailed and action-oriented reports that our Health Checks yield. While too many DBAs produce reports that gloss over facts or make fuzzy claims that could apply to 95% of databases, our reports are precise, easy to understand, and empowering (yes, empowering). Ideally, a Health Check doesn’t just identify problems: it lays out a roadmap for how to solve them.

How Your Business Benefits

Sounds good, you say, but what’s in it for my business?

Peace of Mind. Your SQL Server is a complicated piece of work that your business relies on every day. Just thinking about the number of things that could go wrong is enough to keep you up at night. A thorough Health Check means no SQL Server surprises will throw your business for a loop.

Plan of Action. Your Health Check will identify immediate concerns, long-term projects, and small tweaks to speed up sluggish performance issues—and prioritize them into a clear plan. SQL Professionals will let you know exactly how we’ll work on your servers, how long it’ll take, and what improvements you can expect to reap in return.

Long-Term Performance. A crucial part of every Health Check is an audit of current and future performance scalability. You’ll understand how much of a load your existing environment can take while still performing at an acceptable rate. Even better, you’ll know what it’ll take to scale up, so you can prepare for your long-term needs now.

New Perspective. Even if you already have an in-house DBA, the remote DBAs at SQL Professionals provide a collection of fresh eyes to evaluate your database issues and develop novel solutions. SQL Server database administration is a science—but it’s also an art. There’s more than one way to approach any given problem, and sometimes it takes an outsider’s perspective to spot the best way around a difficulty.

Interested in getting your SQL Server Health Check or learning more about what it involves? Don’t hesitate to reach out; Give us a call at 1-844-SQL-PROS or shoot us an email. We’re more than happy to answer any questions.